Saddle Up(19)

“Your mother let you go? Just like that?”

“I didn’t tell her. When I got to my grandparents’ ranch, I called and told her I wasn’t coming back.”

“She didn’t care?” Miranda asked, her heart wrenching at what he must have suffered to have been so desperate to leave.

“I didn’t give her any choice,” he replied with a careless shrug. “Once I knew where I wanted to be, she never could have kept me away. I was finally home. I had a new family, my grandparents, lots of cousins, and more freedom than I’d ever known. Maybe I wasn’t born there, but I never felt I belonged anywhere else.”

“I can’t believe you weren’t bored to tears after living in the city.”

“It was a working horse ranch,” he said. “There wasn’t any time to be bored. There were always animals to take care of and things to fix. We also hunted a lot. Our freezer was always full of game. It was a completely different life—almost like stepping back in time.”

“Sounds like an awful lot of work to me,” she remarked. “What did you do for fun?”

“When the work was through, we liked to practice stuff—roping, riding, archery, shooting…knife throwing. My cousins and I were always very competitive about everything, always trying to one-up each other, especially when it came to the horses.” For the first time, he chuckled, a low, soft sound. “We did some crazy-ass things with the horses.”

“Like what?” she prompted, her curiosity growing.

“Reckless shit,” he replied, adding more wood to the kindling beneath his makeshift grill. “You know, like hanging off the side of a galloping horse like the ‘Injuns’ in the old Westerns. Or jumping from one horse to another. My grandfather always encouraged us in all of the old ways. He also gave me my first horse, a yearling colt named Little Bear. I knew nothing about horses then, but he told me the horse would teach me all I needed to know. All I had to do was learn how to listen. So I did. For two years we were inseparable. Where I would go, the horse would follow. That horse became my brother. When he was finally old enough to ride, I rode him.”

“Just like that?” she asked. “You just got on and rode?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “Training a horse is not difficult if you exercise patience.”

“Was he the horse you rode in that exhibition? That routine of yours was pretty amazing. It’s like you and he read each other’s minds.”

“Body language,” he replied. “Horses are masters of it. By mastering his, I gained his complete trust. He even let me ride him with a blindfold. In fact, that’s how I got started performing. I roped a calf with the horse blindfolded to impress a girl. A rodeo promoter saw it and offered me a job.”

“That’s how you got started?” Miranda laughed. “By trying to impress a girl?”

“Teenage hormones.” His face split into a grin, revealing perfect, pearly white teeth. “At first it was just local rodeos, but after a couple of years, I left the rez to tour full-time with a big rodeo producer. I taught Little Bear more tricks and began wearing feathers, buckskin, and war paint. When the whole horse-whispering craze came along, I decided to become a clinician. It was a great gig…” He added bitterly, “While it lasted.”

She snorted. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? From what I saw, you used all this Native American mystique of yours just to exploit women. It seems to me you got what you deserved.”

His eyes met hers and hardened again. “You got all that backward, sister. From the very beginning, they came to me. Just like that boss of yours. How is that exploitive? I just gave them what they wanted.”

“You mean Bibi?” Miranda asked. “Are you saying she propositioned you?” She’d heard rumors, of course, but had never quite believed that men were also victims of the casting couch.

“After my clinic, she asked if I wanted to get into films and even offered to pay for acting classes. She even tried to entice me with her Malibu beach house. How else was I to take that?”

“She’s an influential woman. It couldn’t have been easy to turn her down.”

“It wasn’t nearly as hard as you think.” He gave a shudder. “Even if she’d been twenty years younger, I wouldn’t have reacted any differently. You look surprised. Do you really have such a low opinion of me?”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m just trying to figure you out. I guess I didn’t think men had the same kind of scruples about these things as women do.”

“So you think I’m the kinda man who’d be kept as some rich woman’s pet?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not when you put it that way. I can’t picture any woman controlling you like that.”

She knew now that he wasn’t the type. He had too much pride and self-respect. He’d seduce women on his terms. She wondered how many had succumbed. Probably more than he could remember. “So I guess the whole Hollywood idea didn’t live up to your expectations?”

“Hardly,” he said. “How about you?”

“Not exactly,” she admitted. “Or at least not yet. It all seemed so much more exciting and glamorous when I was on the outside looking in. Now, not so much. Then again, I had pie-in-the-sky expectations.”